Games organisers close website for an hour to deal with ticket demand

Games organiser closed the ticketing website for an hour at midnight to deal with "unprecedented" demand.

Sports fans vented their frustration as they faced eight-hour online delays for the remaining Commonwealth Games tickets.

The organisers therefore announced they would close the website for an hour at midnight to cope with the demand.

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A Glasgow 2014 spokesman said this morning: "Since we took the decision to take down the website for an hour at midnight to continue our investigations, there are positive indications that the website experience has improved, but of course traffic is currently at off-peak levels.

"Since 1am, we have sold a large number of tickets and the website is open and transacting.

"We will still need to operate a queuing system at busier periods, and will continue to monitor how this and other issues that were experienced yesterday perform throughout the next few hours.

"We will provide updates on our website, Twitter and Facebook as soon as we have them.

"We are working hard to rectify any outstanding issues and let people show their huge support and buy tickets to be part of the Games."

Chief executive David Grevemberg admitted it was "totally unacceptable" that people had to wait hours while trying to buy seats.

He said: "We let a lot of people down, which we are very sorry for. It was an incredibly frustrating and disappointing day yesterday.

"It's just not in keeping with the experience we are trying to create with Glasgow 2014. To put it simply, the system just did not cope.

"Despite being fully tested, it just did not cope with the churn."

He described it as "totally unacceptable".

Many fans said were kept waiting for hours as they tried to buy them online.

David Fleming tweeted: "Safe to now say the ballot for tickets wasn't such a bad idea considering how long people are waiting for Glasgow 2014 tickets."

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Another sports fan said: "Nearly 8 hours now and just the website clock of doom which never seems to move. And if it does it goes back to the beginning and starts again. I am not logging off until it lets me buy something."

Other fans reported logging on to the site at 10am and still waiting four hours later.

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